


the path that leads to you

by xhangemhighx



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chronic Illness, M/M, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, chronically ill zuko, sorta enemies to friends to lovers but not as well done as it should have been, zukka - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28572753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xhangemhighx/pseuds/xhangemhighx
Summary: Sokka gets assigned a project for his history class. The problem? He hasn't seen his partner in months. Sokka confronts the school skipper and realizes how something small like a friendship can have a big impact.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 223





	the path that leads to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idealistic-fatalism](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=idealistic-fatalism).



> Hi! This was a fic for idealistic-fatalism on tumblr for the atla new years exchange! Enjoy!
> 
> I threw some ADHD in there for Sokka, hope you don't mind.  
> Named this after Maps by Maroon 5 for some reason.

“Zuko and Sokka.” Mr. Hatfield called out. “Theme 5.”

Sokka looked around to find his partner. Zuko. He’d heard the name before in role call, but rarely the voice calling out “here”. Hell, he didn’t even remember the kid’s face. Sure, he was bad with faces but this was different. Who could miss so much class that Sokka didn’t remember anything about him?

Sokka opened the packet he’d been given at the beginning of ancient history class and flipped to the 5th page, which outlined his project in bold letters and diagrams. Sokka smiled. He’d gotten the one where he had to make a model roman city. Luckily, he was a skilled builder. Katara would say otherwise, but Sokka would argue that she’s wrong.

Where was his partner anyway? At home, asleep? Not cool. Hatfield had announced the project and yesterday’s homework specifically for this day and missing it would result in a steep penalty in the semester grade. Sokka had to keep his 4.0, however unlikely that may be while cramming for other AP classes.

He could do nothing but hope that his partner would eventually show up to class instead of skipping so many times. Surely this wasn’t allowed. How many detentions did he have by now? Sokka was annoyed to admit he’d had a few, arguing with a teacher when their opinions or even teaching was completely wrong.

Sokka began thinking of what he’d do for the project. He could probably complete this without his partner’s help, but it’d take too much time and effort. And Sokka wasn’t very good with time management or putting effort into the right thing at the right time. It seemed Zuko the school skipper wouldn’t be good at it either. Not with a fantastic attendance rate like this.

***

A few days had passed and Zuko still hadn’t shown up to school. This was beginning to get annoying. Mr. Hatfield offered no explanation and Sokka really didn’t want to bother the attendance lady because she hated him enough already. If she found him smuggling in five hour energy again, she’d lose it.

The project was already somewhat underway, with Sokka having bought a giant poster board and some cardboard that Momo had tried to scratch up. He hadn’t started on any of the buildings, since he needed some sort of design plan so they didn’t look like boring boxes. Ancient Rome was much more exciting than that. If only he could just make it easier by making Rome burnt to the ground with a tiny Nero figure playing the fiddle that hadn’t been invented yet. Seriously, that’s the stupidest quote. Nero fiddled while Rome burned? He absolutely did not.

Sokka already had little patience and this wasn’t helping. Every day, he’d walk in class hoping to see someone sitting in the third seat over from the window, but every day he was disappointed. An endless cycle of hope just to be let down. There wasn’t really anything he could do about this. He’d already learned the guy’s last name and tried to find him on social media, but it was useless. He was either a hermit or had strict internet usage by his parents. Or something. Sokka wasn’t entirely sure.

***

A week passed. Only two weeks left. Still no contact. Sokka didn’t really know what to feel. Nothing could really describe this mixture of anger, confusion, and sadness. This project was worth a huge part of the semester grade and the kid had failed to show up. Sokka was beginning to believe he’d never existed in the first place. Or maybe he’d disappeared into the wild or simply just moved away.

Of course, Mr. Hatfield would know that he moved. Every time Sokka asked, the answer was the same. Zuko was still listed on the student roster and still absent. How fun this was. He’d vented about it in the group chat a couple times and complained to Katara until she couldn’t handle it anymore and sent him to another room. Katara had always been there for him. Despite her teasing, she was pretty wise. Not as wise as her boyfriend, but she could give some pretty good answers. The lightbulb went off in Sokka’s head. He could ask Katara what to do. Really, he should’ve done that in the first place. How she hadn’t given him advice about this before was a mystery.

Sokka knocked on Katara’s door.

“Hey ‘Tara?”

“Yeah?” Katara said through the door. “What do you want?”

“Can we talk?” Sokka asked.

He heard Katara sigh and walk towards the door, opening it and looking unimpressed.

“If this is about your dumb project partner…”

“He still hasn’t shown up. I don’t know what to do.”

Katara opened her door all the way and beckoned him inside. Sokka sat down on a beanbag chair while Katara laid on her bed. “Go confront him.”

“I don’t know where he lives.” Sokka protested. “I would have done that by now.”

“His last name’s Sozin, right?”

Sokka nodded. “What does that have to do with this?”

Katara glared at him, as if to say  _ hold on, dummy you never get the point do you _ .“You remember Mai, from band? She works at this tea shop called the Jasmine Dragon. The owner has the same last name. I’ve met him a couple times, he’s a nice old man. Maybe they’re related.”

“I’ll go check it out tomorrow.” Sokka told her. “Is their tea any good?”

“Yeah.” Katara replied. “It’s great. Seriously. Go visit. Maybe you’ll find your mystery guy and stop bothering me about him.”

“He’s not my mystery guy if I know who he is.” Sokka argued. 

“Do you even know what he looks like?” Katara rebutted.

“No,” Sokka began. “But…”

“Exactly.” Katara said.

“Fine,” Sokka groaned. He made his way across the room toward the door. “You win.”

Sokka left, shutting the door behind him. He walked back down the hall to his room, where his roman model city was in the middle of the floor, with Momo sleeping on the blank part. Sokka had completed another quarter of the city last night, using a flashlight so no one could see the light from his room and force him to go back to bed. It came to him naturally sometimes and his scatterbrain worked hard through the night to create something he’d be proud of. The list of items he needed had been checked off, much to his happiness. Who’s the boss now executive dysfunction? (Executive dysfunction is always the boss. The 4th wall is broken, the writer starts to complain about ableism, then the 4th wall is sealed shut by the better part of the brain yelling to not do this).

Sokka sat down on the floor, criss cross applesauce, next to Momo. He ran his hand through the siamese’s silky fur and stared blankly at the white mess of poster paper and cardboard on his floor. The buildings blended together; he snapped his vision back to normal and analyzed the project. He’d probably get an A, even without his partner’s help, so why did this matter so much? 

Maybe he’d meet his partner tomorrow, but what would he even do? Go up and yell at him? That’d probably get him kicked out. After getting kicked out of a local shopping center, he figured that it wasn’t in his best interest to get kicked out of anywhere else. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that and Sokka could convince the guy to help him with the remainder of the project.

***

Katara was late. Sokka had been keeping time on his phone, checking every few seconds. He was standing outside the building, waiting for her to arrive with Toph like she’d promised. He wasn’t particularly happy to be here with Toph, since she’d probably make fun of him for the whole ordeal, but it was only joking - they were like siblings. Toph apparently knew the owner and was given free tea on a regular basis.

Sokka was pacing, looking around for any sign of his sister. She was never usually late, she liked to arrive just on time as opposed to Sokka arriving unnecessarily early. That didn’t mean arriving five minutes late was acceptable this time. There were multiple reasons for Sokka to believe this. For one, he was actually pretty scared about confronting his partner, and two, he was pretty thirsty and wanted some tea already.

At last, Sokka spotted his sister’s blue streaked hair (Yue’s fault) through the crowd. She pushed through the crowd, with Toph following behind holding onto her arm.

“Hey nerd,” Toph greeted when Katara stopped in front of him.

“Nerd?” Sokka questioned. “That one’s new.”

“Don’t get used to it.” Toph insisted. “I’m trying out new insults. I don’t like that one.

“Okay then.” Sokka shrugged it off. Toph will be Toph.

The trio walked into the shop, with Toph leading the way to the counter.

“Hi, how can I help you?” The worker asked. A tall girl with her hair in a braid and big, grey eyes. Sokka vaguely recognized her from school. She looked at Toph and Katara. “The usual?”

“Yeah.” Toph replied, then pointed in Sokka’s general direction. “And he’ll get the holiday special.”

Sokka looked at the menu and saw that it was some sort of peppermint thing. Fine with him. The worker, Ty Lee, Sokka knew from looking at her name tag, put in their order. The three sat down at a table near the back.

“How do I talk to the owner?” Sokka asked Katara. “He’s the one I need to talk to, right?”

Katara nodded. “He’s usually here around this time. He likes to talk to customers, we’ll see him soon.”

As expected, an older man walked out of the back room about ten minutes later.

“That’s him.” Katara pointed out. “Iroh.”

The man talked to a few customers, smiling and cracking jokes. His belly jiggled when he laughed, Sokka noticed, mentally adding it to his weird list of things about people. Already on the list: Toph throws pebbles at random people during lunch; she keeps them in her backpack.

Sokka sipped his drink and watched as the man made his way across the room. After a few minutes, he reached their table.

“Toph, Katara!” He greeted. “Lovely to see you again.”

He turned to Sokka. “And you are?”

“Sokka,” Sokka replied. “Katara’s older brother. Also, this tea is delicious.”

“Thank you.” Iroh smiled. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

“I was wondering…” Sokka began. Here comes the preplanned question. “Do you know anyone named Zuko. He’s supposed to be my partner for a history project a few weeks ago, but he never showed up.”

“Zuko is my nephew. I’m sorry for your wait, he has health problems that often prevent him from going to school.” Iroh responded. “He lives with me. I can give you his number, if you would like.”

“That’d be nice.” Sokka told him. That certainly wasn’t the response Sokka had been expecting. All this time he’d been mad at the guy for not coming to school and it wasn’t even his fault. Oops. It wasn’t time for a Zuko redemption arc if he hadn’t been bad in the first place. Why was he even thinking this? Sokka had been watching too many cartoons. 

Iroh gave out Zuko’s telephone number. He talked with the three of them for a few minutes, then moved on. After finishing their drinks, Toph, Sokka, and Katara went home. Sokka made a note to come back to this place later for more tea. 

Sokka jumped onto his bed, holding out his phone. He had Zuko’s number, but what would he say? He didn’t want to come off as rude or creepy. He better just give it his best shot.

Begin text conversation [

S: Hi, I’m Sokka. There was a partner project for history class and you’re my partner. Your uncle told me about your condition. Here’s a picture of the project and what’s required, if you want to send me some suggestions or something you want to add, go ahead.

Z: Are you that kid who interrupted class to call out the racism in that stupid article we read at the beginning of the year

S: Yes

Z: Cool. I’ll try and help with the project. Maybe you can come to my house. It’d be easier.

S: Whatever works best for you

Z: would tomorrow at 4 work

S:  sure

Z:  i’ll send you the address

] end text conversation

Sokka arrived at the address the next day. It seemed like a simple place, one story, brick, and a swing on the porch. Sokka went up and knocked on the door. Iroh answered.

“Sokka!” He smiled. “Come in. Zuko’s in his room, I’ll show you there.”

Sokka walked in, maneuvering his project carefully through the door. It’d taken him a while to get it through the house and into the car, but at least there wouldn’t be any stairs involved this time. He followed Iroh through the house - past the kitchen, where he was offered tea, and through a hallway. At the end was Zuko’s room.

Iroh knocked on the door. “Zuko? Your friend is here.”

“He can come in.” Zuko said, clearly from across the room.

Sokka thought he recognized Zuko’s gravelly voice, though he couldn’t be too sure. Iroh opened the door. Zuko himself was laying in bed, a blanket pulled over him and a cat curled up next to his chest. Sokka did recognize him and almost slapped himself in the face. How could he forget the kid with the scar?

Sokka walked in and sat his project on the floor, on top of a soft white rug. He stood in the middle of the floor, looking around.

Zuko rolled over in bed to face Sokka. His face made a small grimace, which quickly disappeared.

“I’m not feeling the greatest today.” He warned. “But I’ll try to help in any way I can.”

“Cool, cool.” Sokka told him. He sat down on the floor next to the project. “I brought a notepad for ideas and some supplies. I’ve finished about ¾ of it.”

“It’s a roman city, right?” Zuko confirmed. “I don’t really know much about those, but I looked some stuff last night. It’s in a grid shape. Practical.

Sokka nodded. “It was called centuriation. I’ve already set up the grid and used a ruler to mark where the buildings are. I had to cut up some poster paper for the buildings and buy several things of duct tape.”

“I wish I could help, but I can’t really get up.” Zuko told him. “I have pain flare ups in my legs a lot, so it’s kinda hard to get out of bed. I can try, if you want.”

“No, don’t!” Sokka exclaimed. “Don’t do anything painful for me. I can do it myself. Just sitting there is help enough.”

Zuko shrugged. “Alright.”

Minutes went by as Sokka continued assembling the city, talking with Zuko throughout. The cat next to him was Chai, and there were two more somewhere else in the house. Zuko was really interested in plays and classic literature. He used to do sword fighting when he was younger. He watches a lot of baking shows and forged in fire to pass the time. Sokka could talk with him forever without getting bored. 

Dinner came and went, with Zuko skipping out from nausea and Sokka putting a hold on his project to accept Iroh’s offer of tea and cookies. After a few hours, Sokka reluctantly left. They planned a date for three days later and Sokka went home and thought about how wrong he had been. Zuko wasn’t an asshole, he was a kind person who’d been dealt bad cards in life and didn’t deserve all those thoughts Sokka had kept pent up.

Two nights later, Sokka found himself texting Zuko memes at 1am. Surprisingly, he was still awake. They talked nonsense and sent stupid memes back and forth until Sokka ended up falling asleep with his phone in his hand.

Sokka went over to Zuko’s house again the day after and finished the project. Unfortunately, that meant he didn’t have an excuse to come back. Even though he’d only seen him twice, Sokka had taken a liking to him. Zuko was funny and understood him well. He made awful jokes and laughed at Sokka’s. He always had one cat sleeping on him, at minimum. So maybe Sokka had grown attached. That wasn’t a bad thing, was it?

When Zuko texted him and asked him to come over again, despite the project being finished, Sokka shouted. Katara heard and told him to shut up. 

Were they friends now? Sokka hoped so. Zuko was a great friend. Brutally honest (though not rude like Toph) and thoughtful.

Sokka sat down on Zuko’s floor again, with Zuko sitting next to him, not feeling incredibly awful for once. They had a board game on the floor in front of them and a cat sleeping on the end of it.

“You know, I’ve never really had friends before.” Zuko said after throwing the dice. “They always pitied me and didn’t bother to visit. You’re different, Sokka. Thank you.”

That comment lit up Sokka’s day. Well, week. That was all he could think about for a while.

“No problem.” Sokka awkwardly replied. He wasn’t the smoothest in situations involving feelings. “I really like being your friend. I know some other people who’d probably want to be your friend too. You should meet my sister Katara. And Toph. You too are actually pretty alike.”

“I’d like that.” Zuko replied. “I’d introduce you to more people I know, but you already know my uncle and you really wouldn’t want to meet my sister.”

“Why not?” Sokka asked.

“It’s a long story.” Zuko explained. “I’ll tell you sometime.”

Zuko rolled the dice and got a 5. He received a bonus amount of money from the tile he landed on, earning him a glare from Sokka. The game continued and Zuko won. Sokka suspected him of cheating, but Zuko was the only person Sokka wouldn’t accuse. Well, except maybe Toph. And Katara. And Suki. Actually, he was wrong about that.

Sokka left after the game and turned the project in the next day. A week later, when the grades were set to be handed back, Sokka walked into the classroom to see Zuko sitting in the usually empty desk. An unstoppable smile broke loose on his face as he walked over to Zuko and leaned on the desk next to him.

“You’re actually here.” Sokka stated.

“I’ll probably leave next class.” Zuko admitted. “I just wanted to be here. I’m feeling fine at the moment.”

The bell rang and Sokka took his seat a few tables over, leaving Zuko’s side. He caught his eye a couple times during bellwork, annoying the people beside him by smiling at Zuko.

The grades were passed back one by one on rubric sheets, each turned upside down so no one could immediately see what the other person got. Sokka turned the paper over. A 100 percent. His effort, along with Zuko’s suggestions, had earned them a perfect grade.

Sokka’s phone dinged in his pocket. A text from Zuko, asking if he wanted to come to his house later. Sokka texted back a yes and put his phone away.

After school and dropping off Katara at home, Sokka drove to Zuko’s house. They watched a movie together, some awful Netflix thing, Sokka squished into the other side of the bed. Zuko fell asleep before it ended and Sokka was left with a sleeping cat and Zuko next to him. This was something he could get used to. In fact, he would. It became more and more common for Zuko to find excuses to be close to him and more common for Sokka to put off that piece of an English essay in favor of sending Zuko memes and Shrek quotes just to see his reaction and to call him and hear him laugh.

Prom night was skipped in favor of eating ice cream and watching John Mulaney’s Netflix comedies. Katara, Toph, Suki, and Aang helped Sokka plan Zuko’s surprise birthday party. Iroh took to calling Sokka his nephew-in-law. Hakoda joked about sappy teenage romances.

And every time before Sokka left, Zuko would say “Come back soon?”

The answer would be the same. “Always.”

  
  



End file.
